


The flicker

by Beryllium_Astatine



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, Hunting, Pining, Rating May Change, Royai - Freeform, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Tags May Change, Underage Drinking, Young Riza Hawkeye, Young Roy Mustang, Young Royai
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:48:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27166816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beryllium_Astatine/pseuds/Beryllium_Astatine
Summary: "I'll sing of the walls of the well and the house at the top of the hillI'll sing of the bottles of wine that we left on our old windowsillI'll sing of the years you will spend getting sadder and olderOh love, and the cold, the oncoming cold"Riza spends a few of her young years with someone she didn't want to.
Relationships: Berthold Hawkeye & Riza Hawkeye, Berthold Hawkeye & Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Comments: 18
Kudos: 39





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My first and only royai fanfic was written in 2007, when I was a teenager, I was suffering monthly waiting for manga updates, and Brotherwood hadn't even begun. Let's see how it goes today.
> 
> The fragment on the summary is from "Cliquot", by Beirut.
> 
> Comments are appreciated, I might be terrible answering them but I'll try to even if all I can muster is "aaaaaaaa". I'm doing this basically for myself, and now a handful of people. Perhaps you will to be part of that handful, too.
> 
> I'll post relevant content warnings at the start of each chapter. It'll be full of fights, but there will be no sexual violence anywhere in this fanfic and only mild physical violence/abuse, if any. If you feel like something should have been tagged, let me know and I'll see.
> 
> I'm an artist and I sometimes do FMA comics and art, you can find them on my tumblr, @brancadoodles.
> 
> Thanks to Borkthemork and 5hi0 for the support and validation when I began this mess, and to Lantur for beta'ing it and leaving comments I actually printed to feel good about myself and carry on when I inevitably decide to stop this at the first narrative tangle.
> 
> Enjoy.

Cooped up in her room, Riza Hawkeye tried to concentrate on threading the stitching needle on her school socks. October had arrived in her county with leaves being showered away by unusually violent storms, flooding rivers and turning most roads to and around her tiny town into muddy streams. To most in that rural area of Amestris, that was more than an inconvenience: the Eastern region was closest to the Great Desert, and Riza's village was located in a prairie of soft rolling hills, as if the desert wanted to reach as far as possible with its dunes. The _sirocco_ blew often and strongly, pushing humidity away, and only being decelerated by the gently sinuous geography of the East. So the rain season was long, but moderated: six months with rainy evenings, only for the sun to dry the puddles in the morning and a heavy invisible cloud of steam loom over them until dusk. Rainy days were unusual, tempestuous skies rare.

It had been storming for a week.

When the needle fell on the bedspread for the fifth time within an hour, Riza cursed audibly, biting her lower lip in self-awareness. She tried picking it up; it slipped again. She rubbed her hands and intertwined her fingers, forming a shell shape and blowing hot air to get rid of the rigidity, and picked the needle up firmly. Now it was a race: the last pair was rushed through as she fumbled to knot a new thread and mend the fabric as well as she could before the cold settled over her already strained muscles. The stitches were sloppy, but Riza just folded everything quickly and leapt from her bed to shove her garments and sewing materials into her dresser, and then hopped back under the old velvet blanket that had been on her lap.

She sighed, considering the remaining chores on her mental list with teenage melancholy. At least her current duties - sweeping the upper level of the manor and doing a couple of Natural Sciences essays for school - didn't require her to do anything to aggravate the biting cold. She would flat out ignore scrubbing the hardwood floors until the weather was less disgustingly humid, and doing dishes had become an every other day chore. The sound of the rain and the chill didn’t energize her and leave her eager to bounce around doing her duties, anyway.

Riza glanced at the clock. It was still early to begin cooking dinner, but the thought of being close to the oven for a few hours was tempting. They didn’t have enough dry wood, though, to keep the hearth going for longer than necessary to fix their meals, and the pouring rain and intransitable road would make ordering more wood impossible. She was doomed to shiver under a few layers of sweaters and socks too small or too big for her frame, and nevertheless always worn out, until it was appropriate to produce some heat in the kitchen.

The previous month Riza had caught wind about gas cylinders being used in heating and even in modern cooking appliances in Central. That definitely caught her attention, considering how many times wood splinters had ruined her hands. She had stopped by the repair shop to ask to see the publications they subscribed to, and was mesmerized by the chrome valves and enameled casing of those top-of-the-line ovens shining in the pictures like fantastic beetles. She had run the numbers as soon as she gathered information that week, but it was for naught. Gas cylinders were prohibitively expensive to acquire, and bringing them all the way from Central to her heaven-forgotten village was incredibly unlikely.

That realization came only after hours of Riza trying possibilities, counting tabs, recounting favors she could ask in the name of her family. When she finally threw in the towel, it was well into the night. Her notebook - the same she used for school - had two pages filled with graphite markings and numbers, and the magazine’s page was wrinkled from use. Riza got up with a growl of frustration, slapping her hands on the tabletop as she rose. After pacing a little, she decided she would do her best to end this day as miserably as possible by going to the porch in semi-darkness to gather splintery firewood for the morning, a final dramatic move to decorate her irritation. They had the luxury of electricity in some rooms, thanks to Father's maneuvering a while ago, and so light seeped from the kitchen door. Still, she wasn’t able to see spiders or mice in that amount of limited light, and there was a good chance she’d find herself touching a warm tuft of fur now that the weather was getting colder.

Darkness fell over her as she finished collecting what he had come for, however. Riza's head snapped back to the threshold, remembering that she wasn't the only person in the house who was grateful for a warm, bright kitchen.

"Oh- sorry, Riza. I thought you had forgotten the door open." The boy blocking the light exclaimed, clunking to the side. Riza huffed as low as she could manage as she entered the house with the wood in her arms.

"Do you need any help?" His tone was timid, but he was hovering over the magazine with an intrigued expression.

"No,” she declared, marching towards the side of the oven. Riza could feel his eyes on her back until his voice echoed again, accompanied by the sound of flipping pages.

"You're looking to get one of those fancy ovens? I haven't seen any of them since I left the city."

"Mm."

"Well, not that I've seen these either. These are the latest releases, some with military technology."

"That's what they say to sell more." Riza cleaned her hands on her skirt, ready to pick her things up and not exchange more words with anyone else for the day.

"Perhaps. But in any case, it's not like Master Hawkeye can afford any type, right?"

Riza reached the table, grabbing the notebook, pencil, and magazine, and staring into the boy's eyes. His surprise turned into embarrassment in a few pathetic seconds, and he lowered his gaze.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to--"

"We don't need a luxury appliance from Central to make things due, Mr. Mustang." Her murmur was icier than either expected. "The reason we can't have it is because the gas cylinders necessary for them are impossible to bring here. Otherwise, we are creative and skilled enough to have arranged this, like we’ve done on several occasions. You're supposed to learn that from my Father."

Riza turned on her heel, chewing on her own petulance as she marched towards the staircase. She made a point to not look back at him as she left.

From early on, Riza Hawkeye had decided she didn't like the young man who was now living in her house, that Roy Mustang. Her Father had brought him in as both his disciple and as extra income for their meager gains. She’d had little warning of Roy’s arrival, just enough to prepare his room and get some groceries and knick-knacks for his welcome. Riza had taken a look at the lad down at the station the afternoon he arrived and ran back home to face her father with every tool she had - complaints and arguments, huffs and pleas. He had stood impassible to her wishes, and on top of that, judgemental of her outburst. In the end, Riza was the one opening the front door for Mr. Mustang, a mask of neutrality and quietude to cover her aching defeat.

Had she had any kind of power to change things, Roy Mustang wouldn't have ever known of her father and his alchemical knowledge and willingness to take a protegé. Had she had a word in the business he wouldn’t be anywhere near the Eastern area or her village or her father or herself. He would be gangling around the capital very much away from them, thank you very, very much.

But Riza didn’t have either, and in her gelid bedroom, shrinking into her sweaters, she wished she didn’t need to.

* * *

Riza's business was already a handful, however. Go to school, study, take care of the house, cook, and hunt whenever possible, as meat was expensive. Even with her best efforts, she couldn't help support the household any more than she did. Berthold Hawkeye, her father, clinked his silver implements mixing substances in crucibles all day, and positioned his hands under the dripping hot wax all night to have time to put down his findings in feverish, squiggly handwriting. Twice a month he would take their old orange bicycle and ride towards the town. Once to mail his papers to the few independent alchemical labs in Amestris, and once to receive his modest stipend in return. 

When Riza was smaller and Father, stronger, they'd make this bimonthly ride together in the morning and stop for cinnamon buns on the way back. On weekends they would also tend to the house, with Father reaching to dust where she couldn't, and washing their clothes of the most obstinate stains she wasn't vigorous enough to scrub away.

"Do you know what Lucía’s mom got?" Riza had asked, breaking the morning bread in pieces for dinner.

"Child, I don't even know who Lucía is." Father set the bowl filled to the brim with pork broth in front of her with his left hand, tossing a slightly stained handkerchief over her head with the other.

"My friend from school, Father!" Riza squealed with mocking annoyance as she pulled the cloth from her eyes. "The one with the carp pond I went swimming in last February."

Father had settled on his seat across from her with his own bowl, stretching his bony arm on her direction to take a piece of bread. She met him halfway with the biggest half.

"Ah, the one that looked like an overgrown weed someone forgot to pluck, so thin and ugly she was. She looked at you with such envy you could've dropped sick at any moment."

"Father, that's so mean! She's said I was her best friend, and that's true, because she only invited Briana and I for her birthday." Riza filled her mouth with broth-soaked bread. "And she's not that ugly."

"Manners, Riza." Berthold also filled his mouth with bread and soup, however, before continuing. "She's cunning, that's what she is. It's useful to call a girl who can win a brawl and cock a rifle your best friend when you're barely strong enough to carry your own bag to class."

"She does help her family carry things around. She's not that weak, either." Riza's ears grew pink as she dipped bread in the bowl.

"Fair enough. So what about this not-as-pretty, not-as-strong friend of yours?"

"Her mother."

"What about the mother of this not-as-pretty, not-as-strong friend of yours?"

Riza contorted her face, trying to keep her smile subdued. "She got something new to help washing clothes. A machine barrel."

Berthold reached for some stray crumbs, frowning in amusement. "A machine barrel."

"I think that's what it's called." Riza mirrored his frown, only in earnestness, playing with the few pieces of meat floating in the liquid in front of her. "Washing barrel? Something like that. It makes a -- it's quite noisy, and it shakes like Tatsu when it storms, but you add ground soap and anil and fabric looks fresh and clean with no work!"

"Hm-rumm," Berthold took another spoonful. "Can it wash Tatsu, too? It would do a better job than you. He stinks already. How long is it that the mutt hasn't seen soap, two months?"

"That's beside the point, Father!" Riza groaned, exasperated. "Also he -- have you ever tried to chase him for a bath? He goes like your alchemical processes."

"How so?"

"Evaporates, and condenses when I give up."

Berthold's barking laughter made Riza jolt in surprise as usual, but half a second later she joined him, giggling through her nose. He reached to grab her last, tiny piece of bread, shaking his head with a smile, and she playfully smacked his hand.

"Aw. What a mean child I made."

"From a mean father, that's what you get!" She swung her spoon in his direction in a fake lecture, and flicked the bread inside her mouth, picking the bowl up to drink the remaining soup.

"Sounds about right. An unruly bird is exactly what I made, from feathers, bullet cases, and some sulfur in an array in the basement."

"It sounds like that would be really ugly instead of Lucía."

"Not many things would be as ugly as her," Berthold rose from his chair, wiping his mouth on his handkerchief. "Certainly not you."

Riza knew for a fact her face was too round and her eyes too big, but that didn’t matter. She got up with a grin, taking their empty bowls and using the sleeve of her frock to clean red speckles from her face. 

" _Manners_ , Riza." Berthold chastised, more tired than annoyed, as she walked towards the sink.

"I wouldn't need to have manners if we had the machine, you know?" Riza hooked her foot on the short stool on her left and dragged it between herself and the sink, swiftly climbing onto it and reaching for the faucet. "No more sore knuckles, just add everything in the barrel and poof! In a few hours, it'd be all clean."

"I won't have an actual unruly bird for a daughter, do you hear me?" Berthold’s voice got a little farther as he walked towards the back door and opened it, flapping the tablecloth outside to get rid of crumbs. "Besides, your plan is fair, but you're missing something, Riza."

She wasn't. She knew what was coming, because she lived it every day, but she was ready for it. "What I'm _not_ missing is the fact that it's made with a barrel, an engine, and some mechanical pieces and that you're an outstanding alchemist, am I, Father?"

No response came, and she turned her head from the sink. Berthold Hawkeye was draping the cloth over his chair, a crooked smile on his lips as he gazed at her. She bit her lower lip and beamed back, pulling her sleeves higher up her arms.

  
  


* * *

Their improvised washing machine project was something Riza would cherish forever. The girl, knowing her father wouldn't enjoy being dragged from his work even for a day, had already thought up a rudimentary plan to build the machine. She drew the plan in detail in her school notebook and pitched it with her best salesperson persona. Berthold observed her with a raised eyebrow and a glint of amusement on his watery eyes, prodding whenever he knew his questions would make her falter.

"What if the library won't have the engineering magazine subscription you need?"

"Well, Mr. Donnel from the shop certainly will. We can ask him for his once he has no use for them."

"On what grounds will we pop up in the shop and ask the mechanic for his old magazines, without looking suspicious?"

"I'm in school! I can say it's for homework! Some... Sowing mechanism study, some rifle enhancement."

"What kind of rifle enhancement would need mechanical knowledge from a magazine?"

"That's not important!"

"Fair enough." Berthold sighed, bringing a hand to massage his temple. "You're not giving up, are you?"

"It would help us so much!" Riza was already so frustrated she could feel her voice quivering in her chest. "The house is too big, you work so hard, and I need to work on my grades, and now we don't have Mother..."

She heard her voice fall from the weight of the words. They rarely summoned the ghost of Mother. It had been excruciating enough to have her vegetable garden slowly withering for their lack of ability with plants, no matter their efforts; the paintings she made hanging on the living room getting duller with dust; and Riza - her big brown eyes, her instinctive fawning, the way she would sing-song the syllables of words she needed to remember. Riza knew in her heart Father ached just by looking at her, just like she knew she missed being embraced as lovingly as she once had been. She knew the house had grown darker, and haunted, ever since Mother was eaten by the earth.

They kept opening windows and chasing shadows away, however, as survivors ought to do. They would live, with little money and less happiness, but still there. And the mundaneness of daily chores always found a way to taint events with complete disregard, but also offered a chance to carry on.

Berthold closed his eyes, inhaling deeply and exhaling in many seconds. When he raised his head again, he was a few years older. "You are right," he muttered, with another sigh. "We need to be efficient."

Riza nodded quickly, pursing her lips in controlled excitement. She rounded the table and motioned to give her father a peck on his forehead, but Berthold Hawkeye got up, rasping the chair on the stained floor, oblivious. Riza watched him walk into the darkness of their hallway, and the only sound for the rest of the night was of her dog, Tatsu, chasing rats in the yard.

And so, on Friday nights they'd sit side by side on the kitchen table after dinner with her trusty notebook, listing everything they would need to do the next day to move the project forward. All Saturday was dedicated to hopping on the bicycle and riding downtown to look for all kinds of bits, pieces, books, specialized magazines, tapes, and materials. Berthold managed to get some extra rare metals from his patrons at the lab when claiming a new experiment. A long, loud bargaining session with Old Penny from the junkyard allowed them to look for whatever they needed in a specific section in exchange for Berthold producing a kind of oil only available in Drachma, nearly impossible to find in Amestris due to the tensions between countries, for Penny’s exclusive use. By the end of the month Berthold and Riza began experimenting with their building plans, and Riza excitedly ran around in circles with Tatsu when the handyman, Jack Lowell, very kindly brought them an empty wine barrel ruined in an accident.

At this point in the project, Berthold would shoo Riza away and sit on the back porch with a box of chalk sticks, making alchemical circles on the slate floor and experimenting while consulting the material they had racked and his own books. The girl wasn't offended. She knew Father needed his focus and she was only going to distract him with her utter disinterest in all things hard science. Instead, Riza would carefully clean and oil her shotgun and run to the woods, only to reemerge a few hours before sunset, her bag stashed with fowls and rabbits. Father, still on the porch, would preach and rant about how she shouldn't be running alone in the bushes with a loaded weapon all alone, like he always did, but, as always, he wouldn’t complain when she cleaned and cooked the meat for dinner.

Less than a month after that, Jack Lowell saw the Hawkeyes' beagle running down the hill, whining, and hiding in a burrow under the Lowell silo. Jack didn't think much of it, and was amused at the pitiful state Riza Hawkeye was in, all covered in twigs and sweat, when she clapped at his door in the evening and asked (among apologies for the inconvenient hour) if he had seen Tatsu. Jack offered to help lure him outside of the burrow.

"Your pup has always been bold to a fault. What made him so spooked?"

Riza grinned in the dusk, waving a piece of beef jerky in front of the hole. "The washing machine works."

* * *

The homemade washing machine didn't work shinily and smoothly like the one in Lucía's home. The mended wood of the barrel was dark and rough, irregular where Berthold had used his alchemy to reinforce it, but still made of oak and hardwood and carefully coated with varnish by Riza. Old Penny had acquired them a third hand Maxwell-Barter 1890 motorcycle engine - the ones still used and repurposed by the military itself in the border conflicts for their reliable horsepower per liter of fuel. After a lot of trial and error, Berthold had discovered the ideal oil to make the chains and pumps of the machine work with the least issues and cost. Riza was glad he did, because the nauseous odor her father exhaled after the experiments made her stomach churn more than eviscerating fowls ever did.

But as the blankets unfurled on the clotheslines with the wind, pristine against the blue summer sky, after the machine's first run, Riza knew they had succeeded. That _she_ had succeeded.

It took the three of them - Riza, Father, and especially Tatsu - a while to adjust to their new contraption, however. Unlike their non-makeshift, brand new counterparts, the Hawkeye washing machine was bestially noisy. Turning it on would bring the ire of Berthold towards his child every time, who, in turn, would try to sneak to the woods with the beagle before the engine began its symphony. Eventually, they settled on specific days and times to turn the thing on, in which Berthold would almost certainly try to be on his bimonthly trips to town. Now he was closely followed by Tatsu, their mutual distaste ignored in the face of a worse housemate.

It did make work less demanding, though, and eventually not even birds or lizards in their garden minded the rumble made by the appliance. Riza found it easier to ignore by the day, as she was absorbed in her school books or in other house chores. Moreover, the dark barrel meant something even in silence. Her fingerprints glistened on the dried varnish; Father's notes and blueprints rested rolled up at a nook in the mounting mess they had on the porch. Even Tatsu left his mark, small dents on some metallic parts he somehow took as a threat, as if guessing he wouldn't have peace after it was done. In a way, it was the most important thing Riza had done in her life, more than her first A in Mathematics and more than killing an elusive pheasant the previous winter without damaging its gorgeous plumage.

That was then, however. Since that time Riza's dresses had grown short faster than she could afford to replace them, and Father's skinny frame only got less and less meat on it. She still needed to incline her body over the table to reach his side, and her cheeks were still pink and round when she grinned, but she knew she was growing. Soon enough her clothes wouldn't bear any more adjustments and she would need things young women wore, and would not need Father's help to dust the upper beams of the manor.

The upper beams had been caked in dust for months.

* * *

A distant rumble of thunder dispelled the girl from her brief reverie. Her hands, hidden under the velvet blanket, were again as cold and damp as the rest of her room. Daylight fled from the world like it, too, feared the storm.

Time had made itself still again in the gloom. Riza knew better than to let it shroud her.

They had built their washing machine long ago, and they couldn't make an oven. That meant she had to save on their fuel because they would hardly find dry-ish wood in the entire village in this downpour. Riza had mended her school socks and still had to sweep the upper floor and do homework. Later she would light the hearth, bake some fresh, hearty vegetable pie, and drive the men off the kitchen for her to bathe. She would wash quickly in the warmth, feed and let Tatsu relieve himself in a secluded and dry area of the backyard, and run up to read in bed until her oil lamp went out.

(Winter would be hell. When they were only two - when they were the first three - it was bearable, easier. She didn’t want to keep bathing in the kitchen - like she always did in the cold months - when Roy Mustang existed and sought warmth, too. If those autumn showers were anything to go by, it was going to be a particularly nasty next few months. It was going to be insufferable, and she was going to go through it with them and Tatsu)

Riza jumped to the hardwood floor like a startled cat, her oversized and undersized garments fumbling over her thin body. She put on her slippers, breathing resolutely through her teeth, and marched towards the upper level supply closet for the broom.

Riza’s business was plenty, after all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for mentions of teenagers teenaging with alcohol, and parental emotional abuse.
> 
> Anything you need, comment here or hit me on tumblr: @brancadoodles.

That summer gave her no warning. If anything, it was the best of her life.

Riza was still too young to catch the judgement of adults when running down the wheat fields playing with Tatsu, or stealing fruit from overly abundant orchards, or swimming at the river bank in a shirt and short pants. She was, however, finally grown enough to properly reach the pedals of their bike, and she’d ride on her own from her house - at the farthest hill of the village - to town often. She would swing into Lady Natalia’s diner and offer to wait tables in exchange for drinks and jukebox credits (“But only when you come again, before we open,” Lady Natalia would say, and Riza would accept, delighted with having milkshakes and jazz for breakfast), and hang around the square with a book until some of her school friends came around. Riza would then join them to chat during the afternoon, and they all flocked to the back of Captain Hollo’s semi-abandoned barn, or to the Saltwater Well up North, in the evening - a new development on her vacation adventures.

She knew she couldn’t indulge too much, or stay for too long, for the house needed her. She still had to bike all the way back, after all, and if she pressed her luck Father could notice her new pastime and try to limit it. But Riza didn’t refuse a sip of the fine Southern cognac Ednaldo had snuck from his parents’ cabinet, or stifle her laughter at naughty jokes during their games. She didn’t take her hand from Lloyd’s when he gently pulled her behind the barn’s door, even though they turned beet red from the group’s teasing upon their return.

Summers were always a bliss, but that one summer Riza was pink and peeling and breathless with laughter, and even her housekeeping chores weighted easily over the summer’s lazy hours. That’s what Berthold saw when he silently entered the kitchen, finding her humming along a popular song on the radio, while chopping vegetables on one late afternoon. Riza didn’t notice his presence until a minute later. The music abruptly stopped with a click, making her turn her head.

“Hello, Father,” Riza greeted, with a small smile that made her cheeks bright with sunburn. “Do you need something? I’m making _gazpacho_ for dinner.” _Gazpacho_ was one of the few recipes she knew how to handle well, and it was no surprise it was similar to soup. She turned back to the sink. “I know I did some the other day, but it’s been so hot that--”

“Riza,” Berthold interrupted, “I'm taking an apprentice in. He'll arrive on Sunday.”

Riza let the knife slip from her hand to the floor as she turned sharply to face her father, her eyes big as plates. Berthold Hawkeye's brow furrowed slightly at the clinking sound, but he didn't seem to acknowledge the girl's reaction.

“He'll be taking the spare bedroom.” Berthold continued, “I need you to rearrange the trash we've been throwing there for the past years and make it liveable. I'll leave you some extra centz so you can get more groceries - I want an exact account of how much you've spent so we can calculate quantities and spendings from now on. Before that, take notes of things that need to be fixed in the room for me to work out, or to buy. I think the bed frame is broken.”

“Wha--” Riza managed to gasp, confused, picking the knife up from the floor and throwing it into the sink without letting her father out of her sight. “Who? Why?!”

“A lad from Central. His guardian made it look like he's intelligent and eager. I've received some of his notes and alchemical exercises he did on his own accord, and he seems promising.”

Riza just stared, dumbfounded. The upper half of her body turned to him, while her feet remained practically rooted on the floor in an awkward, frozen stance. Berthold sighed, giving her a condescending look. "What is it, Riza?”

“I--” The girl stuttered faintly. “I- Father, are you - you're bringing a man to live with us? In _our_ house?”

Berthold understood her intonation. “Not a man, a lad. A little older than you. Two and a half or three years, maybe a bit more. Young.”

“Two or-- He should be attending school, then! Is he going to my school, too?”

Berthold scoffed. “I asked his aunt the same. It wouldn't be the first time I'd see a kid look for an apprenticeship in order to flee school.” Riza thought she saw his gaze softening for an instant, but it might've been a trick of her mind. “But no, he just skipped a couple of years ahead and graduated early. Not a common occurrence in Central schools. Like I said, he seems clever. I wonder if he'll find living in the country to be unstimulating, but if that's the case, there’s nothing like cataloguing notes to keep him busy.”

“He'll be living here all year?”

“Most of the year, yes. I suppose he might want to spend the thick of summer at home, and I could use that time to catch up on whatever teaching will make me lose track of."

“And - so he'll take up your time for research? Father, is it _wise_ \--”

Berthold's expression hardened at once, like water over a freezing pole, and Riza's legs ached with alarm.

“Since when does a flat-chested lass get to talk to an adult about wisdom?” Berthold cracked, swift as whip, and Riza closed her gaping mouth at once. The heat on her ears and cheeks told her she must look even redder than she was, but Berthold turned to face the door, resting his weight on the table with both hands, oblivious to her reaction. He was quiet for an uncomfortably long time while looking out to the yard and the small hill behind it, and the woods starting just after the hill.

“The West City Independent Foundation for Science has closed its doors.” Berthold finally muttered, letting out a breath.

Riza was still recovering her composure from the outburst, so it took her many seconds to understand, _actually_ understand, what that meant. “Oh no.”

Berthold kept his near transparent eyes fixed on the bright day outside. “Bradley's pack sniffed trouble in the institution, as usual. As if a place where the greatest accomplishments were alchemical agricultural technologies for the disenfranchised on the Western wetlands could ever be trouble for the military. They should be doing what the WCIFS did from the start, but they prefer their wars instead of feeding their people.” He ran his hand through his thinning blond mane. “Do you see, Riza? This country is rotten.”

“But the WCIFS wasn't your biggest commissioner, was it? I thought it was the Central Alchemical Center…” _I'll have to go to the woods five times a week to have some spare game to sell in town. Perhaps Father could get tips and stuff from his Foundation friends so we can finally make the garden produce enough. We need more chick -- oh no, the coop has been wrecked since April. I could get a job in town, and go back to school once we fix it..._

“Correct. But...” Berthold sighed, closing his eyes, and finally turned to face his daughter. “We still needed that income.”

“And the boy... Oh.” Riza deflated a little, looking at her bare feet on the cool slate floor. “I see.”

There was silence again, as realization settled over her like a veil. It somehow occurred to Riza how uncanny it was that it was summer, brimming with joy and gold-on-blue, and they were left in the kitchen contemplating this situation. The previous day she had been swimming at Lucía's carp pond - now enlarged to a pool - and playing games and gossiping, the chilly water a blessing in the beating sun of the East. They had fun like only young girls can have. But summer never crossed the threshold of the Manor's doors.

Berthold straightened up, a towering pale hermit among chairs and hanging pans and pots, and began speaking.

“The boy is intelligent. He's enticed by alchemy, he's dedicated, and educated. The dogs will try to close their jaws on him in no time.” Berthold snapped his twiggy fingers. “Just like that. That's what they do, Riza: they hunt and recruit young bright minds like him, give them a silver watch and money, and lure them away from the true path of alchemy.” Berthold's voice became a rasp. “It's pesticide poisoning fertile ground in Amestris. It's killing everyone and everything who ever dreamed about keeping searching for better ways.” He turned to face Riza again, although she wasn’t sure if he was actually talking to her. “This boy found me on his own, seeking mentorship. I have knowledge no one might ever learn, for they race to the kennels with so much as a whistle. Might as well try to save one.”

Riza nodded gravely, staring at her feet. She didn't care about any of that. She had already been convinced by the prospect of destitution. Every other reason was Father's and Father's alone.

“Will he be staying for long?” She asked quietly.

Berthold shrugged, dropping some of his solemnity with it. “That depends on him, and on his aunt's willingness. A year, perhaps two.” He finally seemed to focus on Riza’s posture, and his features softened in contrast with her deepening frown. He caught her attention with a click of his tongue, and gave one of his sharp, crooked smiles.

“Easy, child. It won't be so atrocious. He'll be staying in the study or the porch most of the time, and I'll make sure he cleans up after himself. It's not like he'll be sleeping in your bed.” Berthold chuckled, amused with his own joke. “If he tries, though...” His voice shifted to mortally cold in a split second, and Riza raised an eyebrow. “You are to tell me, and I promise he won't disrespect anyone _ever_ again.”

At that Riza blinked and crossed her arms, relaxing a bit against the sink. “Most fathers would be locking their daughters in their rooms every night for the comfort of their guests, I think. Alyssa's father won't let her even wear skirts with hemlines above knees in front of her own brothers.” She cocked her head. “Will this be fine?”

Berthold barked a low laugh, as if Riza had said something mischievously funny. The girl cocked her head to the other side, puzzled.

“Neither Alyssa nor any other daughters are incorrigible birds like the one I happen to have in my house. If I tried to lock you up or control your wardrobe, I would fail. You're quiet, not dull.” He shrugged again, dropping his smirk this time. “Besides, I don't waste time worrying about your prudence. Otherwise I'd have questioned you about the dreadful ginger roots you brought from the market yesterday.”

A genuine smile spread across Riza's face. “It's good for your allergies, Father. It warms the chest.”

“It’s summer. We don’t need warm beverages.”

“Your throat doesn’t know that.”

“You're not serving me infusions with that thing, you wretched little bird.” Berthold declared, tossing his head back on an excessively prideful gesture. Riza giggled, loosening her arms and motioning to return to cutting tomatoes. A sudden, but quickly interrupted movement she caught at the corner of her eye made her stop and turn back to her father.

He had taken half a step towards Riza, and his hand floated tensely between them, as if being pulled by a string. He finally reached out and brushed some hair from her eyes with his fingertips, in a quick swipe.

Before Riza could say anything, Bethold retreated to the hallway in the direction of his study, taking brisk steps, and loudly complaining about preparatives. 

* * *

The preparatives weren't as simple as Berthold had made them to be, of course. Closed inside the study for most of the day, the alchemist didn't have time or patience for domestic obligations. Riza, as usual, took it upon herself to check the house up and down, trying to identify anything that needed to be bought, fixed, or replaced before the guest's arrival.

Her father had been somewhat right about the bed: it did have a broken headboard. But that was because the entire bed frame was cracked, and needed to be completely put together with alchemy. The pillow and curtains were ruined by mold, and everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. Riza spent two entire days cleaning the bedroom and rearranging the objects, and over a fourth of that time was devoted to scrubbing and airing the mattress alone. Most of the boxes filled with her mother's miniatures and painting supplies, including her easel, were moved to the attic. In the end, the bedroom still looked cluttered, but only because it was small with one single, narrow window. It was, however, pristine.

They still needed to decide what to do with the chicken coop, though. It had been built with the Manor and abandoned for many years, until Mother went to live with Father and had insisted on rebuilding it. When Riza was little, she loved to play tag with those red, round chickens. Mother had taught her to pick them up and play with them without harming any, saying animals could sense nervousness and fear, and deserved kindness no matter what.

With Mother gone, the coop had fallen into disrepair. One by one, the chickens ended up on Riza's and Berthold's plates. They only kept two small, nameless ones that provided them with eggs every other day. After a bad sandstorm hit the county in the Spring, however, the coop had collapsed. The animals didn't seem to mind, sheltering in nooks under the wreckage and spending the day in the yard, and so Berthold didn't bother to fix it. Riza had warned him about pests nesting in the mess, but Berthold had harshly waved her worries away. Not a week would pass that Riza wouldn't find the corpse of a rat or possum in the yard ever since, dutifully caught by Tatsu.

Riza considered her options. Those chickens wouldn't be enough to provide for three people. That meant getting more of them, which meant fixing the coop. Besides, the chickens they had wouldn't survive the winter in that ruined, uninsulated shed. But talking to Father about anything he wasn’t interested in, especially in this delicate moment, would be like flipping a coin. Heads, he'd go outside with her, they'd access the situation together, and they'd work out a plan, like they had done on other occasions.

Tails, he would lash out at her, and she would have to keep it quiet about it for a long time. Perhaps too long. Riza decided she'd find a way to inconspicuously ask for Jack Lowell's help as soon as possible in exchange for a hand with his dogs or babysitting. She would worry about paying for supplies later. She could open a tab. Another tab.

Riza scrubbed the entire house as well as her still childish frame would allow in those few days. She even managed to convince Berthold to deep clean his alcove and the study, "to give your disciple a good impression of his master.” But as Sunday inched closer, Riza's resolve began to wane.

“Alyssa got permission to hang out with us until dark today,” she puffed, plopping on the front steps and supporting her cheeks on her hands, harsh from the cleaning products. “But I still need to wash and hang the bed and bathroom stuff, and I don’t think I’ll finish this before six. I wish this apprentice would come and wash his blankets himself!”

Tatsu turned his head towards her, gazing in canine solidarity, and lowered it again to return to his nap. Riza absent-mindedly stroked the white and golden fur of his back, watching the winding stone path that peeked through the weeds of the front yard until it reached the dusty uneven road. The next day, at this hour, the student would be arriving at the path. He would look up and see the shape of moss and ivy of indistinctive color he would be calling home for a year, maybe two. Perhaps he would already notice the uneven window shutters, misplaced and whining like crones, or the cracks that opened in deltas on the walls. Perhaps he would be impressed with the architecture, reminiscent of buildings a century old. Perhaps he would be disappointed. Perhaps he’d regret coming down here, to a nowhere house in a nowhere town, where a nowhere girl and her nowhere father just tried to be. Perhaps he’d even _leave_.

Riza sighed. The entire affair sat awkwardly in her mind. She appreciated the peacefulness of living at the end of the lane, with gardens, a wide porch, and the woods at her door. It had been a child’s dream home, the Manor - with vividly colored blossoms beckoning them along the stone path, tomatoes and eggplants carefully cultivated at the back, mayflowers hanging in their fern vases, and the hens clucking at Riza’s attempts to play with them. 

That had been her home, and it _still_ was. Riza cared for it, for them, them _all_. Knowing someone _else_ would be entering it, leaving his steps around their dark floor and lounging at their porch, made her skin crawl. A boy from Central City, no less. What did they have to do with someone who had all pathways cross in front of him, when they only had a single road of dirt and gravel? What could he want from them?

A thrush sang across from her, its red chest striking against the blue sky. It flew off, in the direction of the village. The river beach would be shimmering today. Perhaps the other kids would go there with Alyssa. Lloyd would be with them, certainly. Riza blushed at the thought. Perhaps it was better if she didn’t go, anyway. The weariness from the past few days of hard work and no enjoyment of her time away from school wasn’t enough to stop her from bouncing her leg right now, tense and frustrated. 

“But we’ll still be together, Tatsu,” Riza muttered, scratching behind the dog’s ear. “I’ll rush with my chores tomorrow morning, cook lunch, and after greeting the apprentice at home we’ll go for a run, just the two of us. We’ll play tug-of-war. Do you want to play tug-of-war?”

Tatsu’s tail began wagging energetically, thumping the grass, and he rose to lick Riza on the cheek. “Not right now!” She chirped, smiling. “Tomorrow. After Mister… Mr. Apprentice arrives.”

She was surprised that she hadn’t even asked for her new housemate’s name. That made her even more uncomfortable, for some reason.

* * *

The apprentice arrived at 2 pm sharp on Searcy’s train station, with an older woman Riza assumed to be his aunt. She watched, from her vantage point behind a pillar, as he stumbled out of the train with a leather suitcase that looked too heavy for his thin, pale arms. He looked around like a confused dipper before realizing that he should help the woman get out, too. Riza knew it must be him, because he was wearing a green shirt in a garish style she had seen only in fashion catalogues from Central City at Lucía’s place. The lady, his aunt, wore a dress cut in a way that would give pause to even the young women in the village.

Riza took note of the apprentice’s hunched posture and how his clothes were loose around his body. His black hair was tousled, even though it was shiny and hard with gel, and his shoes squeaked on the station’s tile floor with the insufferable notes of new, unbroken footwear. When he strolled forward towards the exit, his aunt called out to him. He turned his head with a slight frown, returned, and offered her his arm. Riza felt dread pool in her innards.

She didn’t like him. She didn't like him at all.

It would likely take them several minutes to get to an automobile or carriage to drive them to the manor on a Sunday. Riza counted on the latter as she hopped on her bicycle and dashed home. She took a shortcut behind the junkyard - steeper, but faster - and when the house appeared at the end of the road there was no sign of a vehicle. _Good_ , she thought, turning the handle to make a graceful curve at high speed, flying through the purposefully open gate until she reached the backyard.

The girl leapt from the bike without hitting the brakes, leaned it against the wall and barged into the kitchen, kicking her flats off on the way. She stalked towards her father’s study, hands balled beside her body, and stopped at his door. She hesitated, her breath ragged from the race, at last realizing what she was about to do. The gelid dread returned.

Riza knocked on the door. “Come in,” Berthold croaked from inside, and Riza turned the handle.

The study had been cleaned, but one couldn’t tell, at a glance. It was a large space, larger than most rooms in the house, but it was cluttered with all kinds of objects - glass and porcelain vessels, rolled-up blueprints as tall as Riza, jars filled with all kinds of dusts and liquids, chains, dried plants, paint cans, baskets, animal skulls - and books, so many books. All of this was stuffed in imposing furniture that was insufficient to keep piles and piles of objects littering the floor. The only window’s shutters were closed, making the air inside warm and stale, and Riza felt lightheaded for a second. She nearly missed the rasp of Berthold’s oak chair as he rose from the main desk, his back casting shadows like a ghoul.

“I didn’t hear a carriage arriving.” Berthold turned to her, stretching his fingers.

“He’s not here yet.” Riza started, tentatively. “I… Father, we… we need to talk.”

Berthold focused his transparent stare on her, finally regarding the dust and sweat patches on her dress, and her disheveled hair. Riza tried to steady her still irregular breathing at once, growing an intense shade of pink.

“Where have you been?”

“I went down to the station. I wanted to greet him as he disembarked.” Riza held his stare without blinking, hoping the truth on the first statement would mask the lie in the second. The alchemist narrowed his eyes for a split second, scowling slightly. Riza’s legs began to ache.

“I think I ordered you to wait for him here.”

“You did. But...” Riza gulped. “I’m glad I went down there and saw him before he arrived home. Because he’s…” She paused, inhaling deeper. What _was_ the boy, anyway? What did she want her father to _understand_? 

Berthold waited, watching her like a statue.

“Father, he’s… he’s a _fop_.” Riza finally blurted, following the invisible cues from her body. “He’s a _runt_ , a skinny _whelp_. I could break him in two with a shove and a couple of punches.”

An inescrutable silence fell over them, thick as the musty air, as Berthold considered his daughter for a few seconds. Riza felt her eyes prickling with tears, and bit the inside of her lip.

“Child,” Berthold finally started, disbelief unexpectedly patent in his tone. “What on Earth are you going on about?”

“He’s - he’s _unfit_ , Father!” Riza stuttered, moving her closed fists for emphasis. “How is he going to - how are we going to support ourselves with a kid that never picked a straw up in his life? I can’t do _everything_ for all of us!”

She saw her father close his eyes and take a hand to his temple, massaging it slowly while taking deep breaths. She took the opportunity to try and steady her own posture a bit. But then Berthold opened his eyes at once, looking directly into Riza’s, and his gaze pinned her to the floor.

“I would not beckon a student to my home to have him mooch off my resources, Riza.” His voice was low and steady, but his daughter heard the coat of outrage just beneath the words. “His aunt and I have talked about his character and compliance to a new environment’s rules. He is going to aid us with whatever is proper and possible in his regimen of studies, and if he deviates from his best behavior he’ll be sent back packing.” Berthold’s lips curled in a crooked grimace. “Did you really think I would be so careless?”

Somewhere in her brain, Riza realized she was supposed to relax at that. The thing she was worried about had been taken care of. This whole scene, sneaking to the station, scrambling home, had all been her making a fool of herself. And while looking like an idiot in front of Father was its own taste of dreadful, it would be just that, and nothing more than that. But her body refused to listen, her muscles tensed like a doe’s. Something was simply not true.

 _Father has no reason to lie about this. This is ridiculous._ She still kept her gaze directly on his face. Berthold sustained it for the longest time, and then scoffed.

“I should have known you’d throw a fit at this situation. You had taken it way too well.” He shook his head, bringing his hands to his hips. “Here I thought you’d be using that head of yours as more than a base for that nest you call hair. You were once more resourceful, child.”

Riza’s shoulders stiffened. “Whatever do you mean?”

“Aren’t you the one making up plans and trying to fix things? I told you to prepare for his arrival, and tell me about what was needed. You clearly failed, or you’d bring this concern to my attention.”

“I - I couldn’t have known how he was before!” Riza gasped, blushing. “If he didn’t look like a flimsy doll I wouldn’t have been worried, just like I wasn't before!”

 _There_. There it was, the lie. Riza pursed her lips. _But I_ wasn’t _worried about_ that _before -_

“Just because not all young people are gamins like you and the rest of this village doesn’t mean that they don’t have skills, Riza. Quite the opposite. Look at yourself.” Berthold sneered, making an open-handed wide gesture up and down in Riza’s direction. “You look _feral_. That’s not how your mother and I raised you, girl.”

“Mother didn’t care about how I looked!” Riza bursted, before she could stop herself.

Berthold’s expression dulled in disdain, and Riza felt like she had been slapped across the face.

“Ah,” he deadpanned. “There it is. How bold.” He took a step towards Riza, his eyes dark. “Do you claim to know something _I_ wouldn’t know about your mother’s wishes for you?”

“Yes!” Riza shouted, tears finally spilling down her red cheeks. “She wanted to raise a good child, a strong child! _Because we need to be strong every day_ , she said. I dragged his damn mattress out into the sun, I scrubbed the stains from the blankets the washing machine wouldn’t clean, and I went out in the first hours of morning today to hunt doves so that Mrs. Lowell would cook him a banquet for his damn arrival - because you told me to ask her _as a favor_ , because I can’t cook like that. That’s not the kind of chores _he_ will be doing, right? And we don’t - we can’t even feed ourselves properly with that mess of a garden full of weeds and two chickens that one day will be eaten by rats, because we can’t afford to rebuild a coop.” 

Riza sucked in a breath of air, trembling. “And you, you, too, do nothing but work all day, with your research, burning yourself with wax so you don’t fall asleep, and keep losing jobs anyway. And now this - this _boy --”_ she spat the word -- “is coming here to take away from your time and effort, and from _my_ time and effort, like either of those can be afforded with the pennies he’s going to pay us!”

In that moment, time became air, stale and heavy, and impossibly silent. The only sounds were Riza’s asphyxiated sobs. Berthold was a tower: high, imposing, and flaming.

He leaned over, unimaginably slow, until he leveled his face with hers. Riza’s knees were about to give out.

“ _You_ ,” he hissed, barely moving his lips. “Oh, _you ---_ ”

A long howl ripped through the moment, followed by a cascade of strident barking and the unmistakable sound of a carriage getting closer. Neighs made it clear Tatsu had thrown himself in front of the vehicle, and the horses might hurt him in his eagerness. Riza was momentarily confused by how he could have run from the property before recalling she had left the gate wide open in her hurry.

Berthold pulled back in a reluctant, but deliberate, arc, eyes still boring into hers. She watched him uncoil, regal, his expression clenched in mystic danger. _A basilisk_ , she thought, remembering paintings in alchemical emblems she’d flip through as a child. Right there, in that same study, as Father worked. It had been so long ago.

“You’re going to wash your face and brush your hair,” Berthold murmured, punctuating every syllable like an incantation. “And you’re going to put on a clean dress and slippers. Then you’re going to join me and the Mustangs. Do you understand?”

Riza’s lips quivered, but she managed a jerky nod.

“Go.” He signaled the door with a curt head movement, and Riza was able to move again. She turned on the tip of her toes and bounced towards the hallway, climbing the steps to the second floor in twos even though her lungs weighed like water. She cleaned and changed quickly, moving in wooden bounds, as if an invisible tether hung her upright and active. Because Riza knew that if she stopped moving, she would fall to the floor like a shuddering heap of rags. She almost did, when she heard Father hollering Tatsu’s name and demanding he go to the back, and her breathing became fast and desperate. But she spotted her worn slippers peeking from right under the bed, and Riza was once again entrapped by her orders.

When Riza arrived at the hall, the door was closed, and there was no one around. She paused, puzzled, until she heard the low chatter from outside. Riza opened the front door to the manor.

“...and here she is.”

The brightness of the day stunned her for an instant, before she could fully place herself. Father was a few steps ahead, on the stone path, with the lady. The big leather suitcase rested in front of the steps. The carriage waited beyond the closed gate, in the road. Tatsu’s occasional barks could be made out in the distance, and Riza knew Father had chained him beside the coop. Thrushes sang on the fence. It was a glorious summer day.

“This is my daughter, Riza Hawkeye. Riza, this is Ms. Chris Mustang, and this is my new disciple, Mr. Roy Mustang.”

The boy appeared in her field of vision, from her left side. He had been standing beside the front steps, and she hadn’t noticed him until he shuffled forward, holding his coat on one arm, wearing that ridiculous, baggy green shirt. His hair had somehow gotten more disheveled, spiking in every direction, and his slightly slanted dark eyes were wide as he stared at her.

“A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Mustang.” Riza heard herself say.

“All mine, Miss Hawkeye.” Roy Mustang responded, just as quietly as she had spoken.

“Riza, please show Mr. Mustang to his chambers. You may remain inside afterwards.” Berthold’s voice showed no sign of their confrontation just recently.

“Yes, Father,” Riza muttered, looking at nothing. “Excuse me. Mr. Mustang, if you will.”

Roy Mustang didn’t move for a second, mouth agape, before blinking and sharply shaking his head. “Sure,” he blurted, reaching for the suitcase. “I’ll be right back,” he told his aunt. Riza waited until he managed to drag the suitcase to the narrow porch, and then went inside, leading the way in measured strides, trying to ignore the squeaking of his shoes.

Riza opened the door to Roy Mustang’s room, and waited in the hallway for him to drag the suitcase up the stairs. “Showers are only in the downstairs bathroom. They need to be short so as not to overheat the well’s pumping engine. Next time, please leave your shoes at the door. We wear slippers inside so we don't scratch the floor.” Riza observed when he arrived beside her, panting, and she handed him the bedroom key.

“Thank you,” Mr. Mustang breathed, swiping his brow.

“Father should tell you more about the house rules later,” Riza continued. “If you ever need anything, my room is that door down the hall.”

“Alright.” He raised his head. “Thank you, Miss Riza.” He grimaced with embarrassment, shutting his eyes. “Miss Hawkeye, I mean. Sorry.”

Riza nodded blankly. “It’s okay. Excuse me, Mr. Mustang.”

She didn’t wait for his response before turning on her heel.

Riza entered her own bedroom and leaned against the door until it softly clicked. She stayed there, unmoving, until she heard the sound of muffled steps towards and down the stairs.

Then Riza slid across the hardwood until her slippers hit and dragged on the carpet and were off. Her body crept on the bed, legs hanging from the edge, sweat prickling on the back of her knees, a golden world outside her window.

And once the spell wore off, she cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [summer_moved_on_-_aha.mp3]
> 
> Once again thank you Borkthemork and 5hio, and also Cantodelcolibri, for cheering me on. Thanks particularly to Lantur, for beta-ing this work and also being so supportive.
> 
> Thank you for reading, I hope you're enjoying this.... novella, I guess.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for underage drinking (in a safe setting), mentions of bullying and mentions of fist fighting.

At first, it didn't seem like it would be so bad. Roy Mustang, the apprentice, was polite, and also clean. But Riza realized the lack of conflict was mostly due to her simply avoiding him. She would rise before everyone and always do chores around the house when she knew Mustang and Father were in their rooms or in the study. She would then try to be as far from the Manor for as long as possible. Her rounds in the woods grew so long that sometimes Tatsu would refuse to carry on, whining and prancing in the direction of the house. Sometimes she returned with him; other times she ordered him back and kept going alone until the sun began to redden.

But long walks weren't enough to satiate Riza’s need to stay away. She still had to cook and serve the men, wash and clean for them; hear them scribbling and flipping through pages, while arguing with ludicrous words and strange gestures. The arguments didn’t stop, not even during meals. Berthold, like a belfry, rambled restlessly while pacing around the kitchen dodging baskets, and barely regarded Riza. Mustang, leaning over his notebook, took notes so fast he'd wrinkle every page as he turned them. He'd only eat when Berthold silenced or retired to his chambers, and by then the dinner Riza made was usually already cold.

Roy Mustang's contribution to the domestic work was as Riza had expected: none. As a boy, and raised as such, he probably had women fussing around him to make him comfortable so he could focus on his studies and whatever it was boys were raised to do in the big city. Which, as far as she could tell by observing the one living in her house, was literally nothing else. Riza didn't mind cooking and cleaning, as those usual tasks for girls to do. She didn’t even mind doing a few typical boy chores like hunting. Her father took care of heavier manual labor or more complex activities, or they would hire Jack Lowell to do so. While daily life was hard, she never felt overwhelmed. 

Still, even before Mustang arrived, Riza and Father were often too swamped with work and school - or in too much of a tight spot financially - and for weeks or months they would barely manage. With Mustang being there and not taking part in chores, their workload multiplied. To make matters worse, Mustang also kept Father from working on his tasks, since the two of them were always together now. That forced her to shorten her time away from the Manor, much to her chagrin.

If the work overload was the only problem Riza had with the boy, it would have been bad enough. She had been dreading that, after all. But just like Mother used to say, " _It never rains, but it pours.”_ Living with Roy Mustang was a nightmare.

To start off, his demeanor was rambunctious. His heavy stomping on the old floorboards scared the birds from her windowsill, and his uneven teenage voice managed to startle her up in her room even when he was on the other side of the manor. Riza was used to her washing machine roaring all afternoon and barely registered its familiar notes, but Mustang's presence in the house was too unpredictable for her to know when the next bang or squeak would hit her ears.

Riza quickly noticed it wasn't simply a matter of asking Mr. Mustang to mind his voice or steps, or to help with cleaning sometimes. He was messy _in essence._ His entire existence had an aura of noise and chaos Riza felt from a distance. She could decipher precisely Roy's steps on the yard and the hall, just following the trail of destroyed grass and fallen or moved objects he kicked on his way. When he ate, it was a given he would accidentally bump into her or spill soup on the table cloth, apologizing in an all too loud mumble. Riza only nodded or responded curtly with an "it's alright," and they fell into the closest to silence as it was possible among the clatter of his cutlery.

Perhaps worst of all, Riza learned that even in her time away, she wasn’t free of his influence. First, it seemed like she had to go further into the woods to find game, now, as if his ruckus could be sensed from over a kilometer away. In time she discovered another good reason for the animals' absence: they could probably sniff her more easily. Roy Mustang wore way too much cologne - he had brought it in a fancy blue-green flask from Central, alongside his high waisted trousers and colorful socks, which apparently were quite fashionable in the capital. The scent lingered in the common areas for what seemed like hours. Riza could smell it on her dresses as she took them from the clothesline, and the reminder of his inescapable presence made her furious beyond reason. She had always been patient, but taking all afternoon to catch two rabbits because she stank of city boy was just _outrageous_.

Second was the fact that a new face was living in the alchemist's house wasn't ignored by the rest of the little country town. Mustang being a male teenager with a flair from the capital, and Riza being a girl and the only house member who had some social life, were simply the twisting of the knife.

"I hear he's tall." Lucía chirped, raising both her eyebrows and her pitch with intent. "With dark, mysterious eyes."

"Mm." Riza took a sip from the bottle Brianna passed to her and held it to her lips for longer than necessary.

"You should invite him to hang out with the bumpkins, Rizita." Ednaldo teased, his round face glimmering from alcohol and mischief. "Or is he too... _elegant_ for that?"

All boys snickered obnoxiously, making affected gestures, and the girls chastised them while cooing provocatively about the differences between country and city men. Riza pursed her lips, trying not to show her discontentment. That was the first night in over a week she managed to sneak away from home to meet her peers. Lucía and Brianna even clapped by the Manor’s gate a couple of those days, inviting her to hang out, but Riza had been either busy or too tired to consider biking up the hill after staying up late. Spending the last days of summer busy and alone was the icing of the misery cake brought over by the apprentice's arrival, and _he_ was the last subject Riza wanted to talk about in what would likely be their last _rendezvous_ at the Saltwater Well.

She brought her crossed legs closer to her body, scratching her calf on the rough grass beneath her, and took another sip of the whiskey. It tasted as terrible as before. 

"You said your parents considered this 'refined', Zachary.” Riza turned to the slightly older, bushy-haired lad sitting beside her, his legs long and tangled like a foal’s. “How can adults think 'refined' means 'disgusting'?"

"It's an acquired taste." Zachary dandily snatched the bottle from her hand, speaking with the usual sleazy cadence he probably thought was attractive. He took a generous gulp of the whiskey, clicking his tongue in an unmistakable grimace. "It’s a matured drink, so the more _mature_ you are, the better it feels, you know."

Riza directed him an unimpressed pout. Zachary answered by licking his teeth at her - something he probably thought was attractive, too, but that only made Riza roll her eyes and look back at the group. Lamentably, they were still talking about Mustang.

"Uncle Cícero said his skin looks a bit yellowish, like he doesn't catch sun. He said it could be jaundice, but as city peeps catch electric motorcars up and down instead of walking under the sun…" Lloyd mused, propping a leg on the well.

“ _Streetcars_ , you dumbass,” retorted Brianna, shoving a chubby elbow into Lloyd’s ribs in the guise of a joke, but that made his propped leg slide on some pebbles as he tried to keep his balance. “Sorry," she fawned, pulling him back upwards. "But look, your uncle thinks he’s the town’s doctor, even though he’s just a pharmacist. He can’t know what anyone has just by looking at them.”

“He knows better than _you_ , though, who has never even _seen_ him.” Lloyd turned his blond head, looking for support from the group, but deliberately avoided Riza’s face. She bit the inside of her lip, offended. He hadn’t had the courage to look her in the eye, let alone break up with her, properly. _Coward._

“You don’t know that.” Brianna adjusted her posture primly on the border of the well, tossing her long, dark brown curls over her elbow. Lucía would kill for gorgeous hair like that, but Riza saw only trouble in caring for long locks, and maintained hers short. “I actually _did_ see him when I went to call Riza the other day. He was out on the back grounds and walked a little towards the gate, but Riza appeared at the window and he turned around.”

“Aww, I should’ve gone with you,” Lucía whined, in her “cutesy” voice. It sounded more like a wounded fox cry than anything else, in Riza’s opinion. “I hate that old mansion, but I wanted to see him… no offense, Rizita.”

“None taken.” Lucía and Brianna never went up to spend time in her house like she did at theirs. She tried not to think about that. “But why are you so riled up about my father’s student, anyway? He’s the most uninteresting person I’ve seen, in all aspects.”

Ednaldo snickered, stretching on the grass and grabbing the already half-empty bottle from the feet of the well. “A dude from Central, in the middle of the Eastern area, who lives up in the ancient mansion up on the hill studying Alchemy is uninteresting? You reached new levels of snob now, watch out!” And he laughed as he gulped more of the whisky, spluttering a little on Lucía’s skirt and making her shriek.

Riza pursed her lips once again, reaching out to pick off some lichen off the well’s irregular stones. She eventually felt the group’s eyes on her, as the chatter died. “We don’t talk much,” she grudgingly started. “Only when it’s strictly necessary. He’s always in my father’s study or his room. We meet in the kitchen to eat, and that’s all. All he does is read and write, read and write, and listen to my father. I bet he’d be spilling his lungs off from running up the junkyard slope. Also, he really is pale - you can see his veins beneath the skin - and his hair is straight and spiky like we see in the magazines. Except it’s ugly.” Riza raised her gaze to meet Lloyd’s. “We have nothing in common.” _Wimp._

Lloyd lowered his gaze immediately, kicking a pebble inside the well. “Is that all?” Lucía brought her hands to her bony hips. “You know nothing else about him?”

“No.” Riza reached for the bottle again. “He does nothing a young man should do. He doesn’t cut wood, he doesn’t fix the fence, nothing. He’s all about Alchemy all day and probably all night, because I see light coming from under his door until very late. I don’t know anything about him, and I don’t care.”

Silence fell over the group as Riza took another long sip from the whisky. She clicked her tongue at the bitterness, trying to feel any pleasure at all, and failed.

The sudden movement of Zachary jumping to his feet startled Riza and everyone else for a second, but they all knew what was coming as he struck a pose like the cover of _Amestris Youth_. “So our new metropolitan visitor isn’t here to get the ladies. Well, that’s a relief.”

A collective groan rolled around the abandoned patio as the kids shifted in their places, stretching and shaking their heads among curses directed at Zachary. Riza remained in her spot, frowning, and pulled her legs closer to her chest.

Lucía got up, dusting her skirt. “Well, that won’t do.” Riza looked up at her skinny, long face, and realized the girl was upset at her. “We need to know more about him. It won’t hurt having someone of our age hang out with us, hm? It’s so _boring_ here.”

Riza narrowed her eyes, her sight slightly blurry in the night gloom. “What are you talking about? I just said he studies all day and all night. He won’t come out.”

“Perhaps his study regimen will loosen up a bit after a month or so,” Brianna interjected in a conciliatory manner, while also getting up. “We’ll be back to school, yes, but surely we can meet up on some weekend? Perhaps for the Harvest Fair.”

“I --” Riza looked from one girl to another, and then to the boys. Even they seemed expectant, almost anxious, like a bunch of dogs staring at some ox femur about to be thrown out. She blinked, trying to organize her thoughts. “Why are you so _interested_ in meeting him? I told you, he has nothing to do with us.”

“That,” Lucía tossed her straw-colored hair over her shoulder, “You don’t know.” Her gaze pierced through Riza’s confusion and dawning stupor, but Riza couldn’t place its meaning. It bothered her even as Ednaldo made a nasty joke regarding Lucía’s legs, and they all devolved into the same chatter and laughter for another half hour.

As she rode her bike back home, Riza tried to make sense of that last night of vacation, with her friends. They were going to hound her at school to make sure she had Mustang go to the Harvest Fair in Autumn, with them. She figured it would be exciting, especially for the girls, to meet a lad from such a different world from theirs. Her unwillingness to introduce Mustang to them might have seemed confrontational. Why exactly she found herself wounded by the entire affair was something her intoxicated mind didn’t try to process. She promptly forgot it in a corner or her consciousness as she woke up with a splitting headache the next morning.

* * *

Riza swore not to put a single drop of alcohol in her mouth again in the aftermath of that late summer night. Still, morning headaches became a common occurrence as the weeks went by. She would grab her worn velvet quilt and huddle on the back porch, with her back against the wall between the doorstep and the washing machine, and quietly drink her morning tea with her eyes closed until the headache subsided a little. Tatsu always curled up beside her, following the curve of her body like a warm, itchy pillow, and Riza stroked his fur to the rhythm of his breathing. The beagle had been her best friend for almost half her life, now, and in times like these Riza was reminded of how much she adored him.

She was reminded of that quite often, though, as Tatsu was actively displeased with Roy Mustang’s presence as well. He refused to be approached by the boy, and stalked behind him, barking, every time Mustang had to be outside. Riza often used that as an excuse to take Tatsu to the woods (“He just needs some exercise,”) like the amazing pup worthy of praise he was.

On the first morning without rain after that unusually stormy week, Riza and Tatsu were again on the porch, considering the day ahead. It was time to count their losses, and Riza dreaded seeing the damage to stores and houses in the town. However, Riza wasn't even sure if she would be able to _get_ there. If the road had become a quagmire, biking would become impossible. Even with proper footwear and overalls, Riza might find herself stranded if she tried to walk. That was the reason why classes had been suspended that week, and how Riza finally caught up with her assignments.

"I don't think we'll have a choice, though," Riza sighed, scratching behind Tatsu's ears. "Yesterday I had to cook the potato and carrot skewers with the soup, only to thicken the broth. At least the chickens are having a feast, with all the worms coming out." The little chicken feed they had for emergencies had run out two days ago. Riza managed to improvise a shelter on the porch when the rain started, but the birds grew crestfallen and thin, and the girl feared they had gotten sick with the cold and humidity. She watched them walk carefully in the waterlogged yard, plucking bugs from the ground. One of them sneezed, and Riza brought the mug to her lips, feeling her temples tingle again.

Tatsu whined, looking up at her with large hazel eyes. Riza gave him a tired smile. "Mother was right, wasn't she, boy? We really need to be strong every day."

The beagle bumped his forehead against her thigh, and Riza hugged him, only rising when the light morning fog faded away.

* * *

The storm hadn’t been enough to stop the preparations for the Harvest Fair, like Riza had secretly counted on. On one hand, that was good news. Searcy and its neighbors were rural towns that lived off farming. While the storm might have ruined some produce, it was encouraging to see tents and poles being raised in the square for the coming feast, despite the sight of some ruined roofs and fences.

On the other hand, Lucía and Brianna wouldn’t let Riza forget about her agreement to invite Mustang to the festival, no matter how unresponsive and covered in mud she was when she arrived at school every day. Even the boys began making practically every conversation run in circles until it became about the event where they would meet the city alchemist boy, speculating endlessly about what it would be like to spend time with him. Soon, they were directly questioning her about if she had already invited him to go, if she had talked to her father about it, and if she needed them to help with convincing her father.

Riza’s evasive mumbling and tired repetition of Mustang’s study regimen only made the kids disappointed - with the exception of Lucía, who got borderline enraged. After a particularly aggressive prod that rubbed Riza the wrong way, she decided enough was enough, and began isolating herself from the group. She didn’t respond to the little notes her friends passed on to her, or stay with them during lunch, or even walk with them until the fork that led to her house.

“Let them,” Zachary commented one morning, as Riza observed the girls chatting and looking in her direction out of the corner of her eye. “They’ll be disappointed anyway. Sit back and watch the disaster happen.”

Zachary had been the only one from that night who didn’t seem invested in meeting Mustang, but he wasn’t part of the little group nor really friends with Riza. In fact, she barely tolerated him. “I don’t want them to be disappointed, though.” She sighed, bumping her head on the dark wood of her desk.

“It’s not like you’re not trying,” Zachary was sitting on the desk beside her, cross-legged, while the teacher was out. “You’re too nice, _Badger_.”

Riza groaned into the desktop. She heard Zachary’s sleazy laughter as he jumped onto the floor, walking back to his seat. “If you’ve got no buns, then boys will prefer the mean ones!”

 _Is that so?_ Riza made a mental note to beat the living crap out of Zachary whenever the chance presented itself. Punching his filthy mug would be worth it if only to see the dawning comprehension of what that nickname _meant_ on his sorry face, and he could then decide if it was actually attractive. If he managed to see anything with black eyes, that is.

Riza wasn't a troublemaker, or, at least, not an usual one. Like with almost everything in her life, she had found shelter in looking tough to survive. Being the only child of Berthold Hawkeye, the mysterious alchemist living on the old Manor at the outskirts of town, carried a stigma of suspicion around her by default. Riza's mother usually placated part of that effect, with her sweet, bubbly personality, but her passing had made whispers grow much louder.

Adults would find her serious semblance odd, like her father's, but children were meaner. Riza's quiet meekness and obedience had made her a target for bullies in the past. Grief only made her more withdrawn and even easier prey. After months of suffering from the actions of some and the silence of many, on a plain spring afternoon at the school patio, then eight-year-old Riza Hawkeye broke.

Broke an older kid’s nose, and fractured another’s index finger, that is.

The episode caused a commotion in the tiny rural school, and Berthold was immediately summoned to speak to the principal and the parents of the two bullies, who cried inconsolably. He listened, in silence, to their complaints that Riza was antisocial and had become violent. Then he asked Riza why she had attacked the kids. She gulped her sobs and squealed that she was tired of being abused and that if no one would be her friend, then at least no one would harm her anymore.

“There you have it,” Berthold announced, turning back to the principal and the children’s parents. “You allowed this to happen. My daughter is so gentle she cries every time we slaughter a chicken to eat. But no one is exempt from violence when pushed to their limit.” His voice lowered to a slightly threatening tone. “If this school and the adults responsible for these children took my daughter’s plight seriously, it wouldn’t have come to that. Unless she begins assaulting others unprompted, don’t bother calling me here again. But if I see her distressed like that because of your actions or lack thereof once more, then I’ll act _myself_.”

Everyone was afraid of Berthold Hawkeye, who had arrived in the small town years ago and still barely knew the villagers. No one knew of what he was capable of, only that he worked for people all around the country, and strange letters from strange nongovernmental associations arrived for them every month. Riza didn’t know his power, either, but something good bubbled inside her when he took her hand as they left the principal’s office, and helped her up their old orange bike to ride home.

“If you ever feel that helpless and distressed and want help, you are to tell me, Riza. I didn’t say all of that lightly.” Berthold placed an icy wet cloth to her bruises as he spoke, back in the Manor. “But I’ll let you handle the situation as you see fit. If you instead choose to ignore them, or fight them, or tell a teacher, do so.” He put the cloth beside the bowl filled with nearly completely melted ice, and placed the tips of his fingers on the array underneath it. One blue flash later, and the bowl was nearly completely filled with ice again. “Whatever you do, though, own your choices.”

Riza nodded at his words, flinching at the renewed touch of fabric against the tender skin under her eye, cold and relentless. Such was Father’s love; and for the first time after Mother had died, she felt happy again. 

No one bothered Riza after that for a while, but bullies always returned. They quickly learned she was both athletic _and_ stubborn. Soon enough, kids in Searcy learned that quiet and gentle Riza Hawkeye, once engaged in a fight, just wouldn't back down unless victorious or knocked out. They began calling her _Honey Badger_ , and slowly, but surely, her courageous showdowns attracted friends. First Ednaldo, then Lucía, and slowly, more and more kids became comfortable enough around her. As she grew more accepted by her peers, the bullying began dying down. Riza knew some people would still attack her if they had a chance, but peer pressure kept them away from her, and that was enough. She didn’t enjoy fighting, never bragged about her wins or her ferocity, and only hoped “Badger” would be forgotten after she left school.

But Riza would be lying to herself if she said she wasn’t waiting for an excuse to beat Mustang up. Despite knowing how unsavory it was to risk provoking Berthold’s ire, she couldn’t stop fantasizing, at times, about kicking the back of the apprentice’s knees and smacking the sides of his head. Making him fall and whine at her feet. Making him pay for her misery and frustration.

Riza knew it wasn’t Mustang’s fault, but she wanted to punish him anyway. Her last confrontation with Father had made it clear he wasn’t going to accept an inch of her rebellion towards the situation. They had never brought the confrontation up again, and ever since Mustang arrived, she never managed to catch Berthold alone. Riza’s feelings towards her father were convoluted at best, now. The wounds from that episode weren’t even close to healing, and his new unavailability to help her hold the household together was taking an enormous toll on the trust she had always placed on him. That hurt her the most. The chickens were sick. The yard was a swamp.

All because of that damn _boy_.

Riza mulled over an idea for days and days. The Harvest Fair was coming. It was an opportunity. 

She just needed to own her choices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, the morning after I post this, sipping instant coffee: Why do I keep writing myself into trouble.
> 
> Thank you all who keep encouraging me, and of course @Lantur for the beta reading. Go give her love, she writes so well.


End file.
